Chamber and committees

As members know, we are working closely with the social sector and have established an official-led short-life task-and-finish group to consider the best approach to take from 1 April. That work includes consideration of the impact of measures in the short-term and long-term business plans of the sector.

We have lodged Government amendment 2, which is in the next group, to bring greater certainty to the social sector by enhancing the Scottish ministers’ reporting requirement under section 8 of the bill. That will require us, in the first half of January, to outline what will happen with any social sector cap—whether the current rent cap will expire, or be extended, suspended or increased.

We are working very closely with the sector to agree appropriate action and the enhanced reporting requirements. That engagement will secure certainty and the comfort that Mr Griffin is asking for well in advance of 1 April. I will describe what the Government’s amendment 2 will do in a little bit more detail when I move the amendment in the next group.

It is worth noting that section 8 already requires us to review the appropriateness, necessity and proportionality of the rent cap overall, going forward. That said, I will not be able to support amendment 1. I invite Mr Griffin not to press it.

I thank Pauline McNeill for lodging amendments 4 and 5 and for working constructively with us. Like Ms McNeill, we want tenants to have the information that they need in relation to an application by their landlord to raise their rent above the level of the cap, in response to having incurred increased costs related to mortgage interest, landlords insurance or service charges. It is important that tenants understand that, even though their landlord might have made an application, they are not required to pay any increase in rent until the process has been completed and the decision has been taken on whether that increase can be made.

I am happy to support amendments 4 and 5 and I urge members to vote for them.

Bob Doris is quite right—not least in referring to the requirements under pre-action protocols. I think that all of us in the chamber recognise that landlords in the social rented sector do not pursue evictions in cases of rent arrears or on other grounds without good reason. They tend to take the approach that evictions should be the last resort. I think that the whole Parliament should have confidence that they will continue to act in that spirit.

Therefore, in summary, I cannot support amendment 8 and I urge members to reject it.

I turn now to my amendments 7, 9, 11 and 12. The amendments will provide additional exemptions to the moratorium where a tenant is no longer an employee of a landlord. We have listened to concerns that were raised during stage 2 about the need for additional exemptions to enable employers to recover a property where an

“employee of an agriculture, forestry or other rural land-based business”

no longer works for them and they require the property for a new employee. We recognise the importance of all employers being able to recover a property where the tenant is no longer employed in order to free up that accommodation for a new employee, particularly during the current economic crisis.

We do not think that it is appropriate to create a new ground at this time, as was proposed by Jeremy Balfour, and we have therefore based the exemptions on the existing grounds for repossession.

As Mr Griffin said, he lodged amendments yesterday that were welcome but not quite in a form that we were able to support. I thank him for bringing them back and working with us to ensure that they are in a form that we can support.

Ensuring that landlords have to clearly evidence financial hardship will be an important part of making the moratorium and safeguards work in practice for landlords and tenants. The addition of the examples of evidence that the tribunal can seek and consider is, therefore, welcome.

I urge members to vote for all the amendments in the group.

Without once again getting into the politics of the reasons behind the rise in interest rates, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the majority of private rented tenancies in Scotland do not have a mortgage behind them, and that many of those that do are on a fixed rate that will not be due to change in the immediate period ahead.

The approach that we have taken is, as I have said, balanced. It recognises that, where there are increased costs, there needs to be some degree of flexibility, but the approach needs to work in a way that is balanced.

I come to amendments 28, 29 and 30. Amendments 28 and 29 will cut across the work that we and the social rented sector are committed to doing collectively and collaboratively through the short-life working group that I have mentioned. As I said, I get the sense that there is a real willingness to work in that collaborative spirit to ensure that there is a way forward that protects tenants as well as the providers of social housing. Amendments 28 and 29 do not set out a way in which we think that the protections for the social rented sector would work. In fact, I think that they might undermine and pre-empt the work that we intend to take forward, which we intend to do with momentum.

On amendment 30, it is important to recognise that student tenancies are structured differently. We have the desire to offer parity of protection, but student tenancies often include energy costs. We have defined rent for this sector to make it clear that rent includes the

“Sums payable in respect of services, repairs, maintenance or insurance”.

However, where utilities are included in the rent and the student makes “excessive use” of them, it is right and fair that an accommodation provider can seek recovery—

I will come to some of the arguments around Mr Rennie’s amendments and some of the reasons why I do not think that his approach would give certainty in the way that he suggests.

We are firmly committed to working with the sector as well as supporting it to undertake meaningful consultations with tenants while that work continues. To drive that progress forward, we have established a short-life task and finish working group that brings together Government officials with leaders from across the sector to identify and consider the available options.

Every discussion in which I have taken part with the sector—I think that this is true of the cabinet secretary’s discussions with it as well—gives me great confidence that we can find a way to meet the needs of tenants in the sector, who would have the same expectation of security for themselves as other tenants, and the needs of the sector as well as the wider purposes of social housing. I am therefore not able to support amendments 4, 5, 21 and 23, and I ask the members not to press them.

Amendments 6, 16 and 24, in Pauline McNeill’s name, raise a substantive issue. The aim of the bill is to protect tenants, helping them to stay in their homes during the cost crisis by stabilising their housing costs. The average tenancy in Scotland lasts around 18 months, so the emergency measures will provide protection to the majority of tenants. The application of the rent freeze on that basis responds to the need to ensure proportionate measures.

Pauline McNeill has mentioned the risk of illegal evictions. The additional penalties that the bill will provide create a strong disincentive for landlords to pursue unlawful evictions. The member is quite right to raise the issue about raising awareness in the sector among tenants and landlords, and we will debate that point when we get to other parts of the bill.

Prospective tenants who enter into a new tenancy will do so on the basis of an agreed rent, and they will immediately have protection from any rent increase, as the provisions in the bill will apply while their tenancy is in effect.

The majority of tenants have security of tenure. We might need to continue to discuss aspects of those provisions with Pauline McNeill over the course of the day. The enforcement of a rent freeze or rent controls—

None of us wants to see anybody in this country facing financial hardship. I only wish that both Governments were acting with due regard to that risk.

I will come on to Mr Greene’s amendment, but I want to address those wider points about balance first, because they also relate to Mr Balfour’s amendments 8, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 20.

Mr Balfour once again sets out—quite fairly, as he is within his right to do—that he is fundamentally against the measures in the bill. He does not support the measures that we are taking to protect tenants. I urge him, as well as others, to recognise comments that the Scottish Association of Landlords has made about the balanced package of safeguards. He is concerned about people facing costs that are outwith their control, but he seems to be concerned only about landlords who face costs that are outwith their control. I think that Mr Griffin was quite right to pick up that we should be concerned about landlords and tenants.

I will give way in just a moment.

The need for that balance is what the 50 per cent figure seeks to recognise. It seeks to ensure that, if there are increases in prescribed, limited costs, they will be balanced between landlord and tenant.

The First Minister was clear, and I regret that the member is choosing to misinterpret what she said in that way. It is very clear that the intention is to prevent rent increase notices as a response to the programme for government announcement. The bill as it stands will achieve that.

Although I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this group of amendments, I must ask Parliament to vote against all the amendments in it.